Lee Child - Running Blind

“Something’s different,” Reacher said.

“What?”

“Let me think.”

He stood there, opening and closing his eyes, comparing the scene in front of him with the memory in his head, like he was checking two photographs side by side.

“The car has moved,” he said.

Blake sighed, like he was disappointed. “It would have. She drove to the hospital after you left.”

Reacher nodded. “Something else.”

“What?”

“Let me think.”

Then he saw it.

“Shit,” he said.

“What?”

“I missed it. I’m sorry, Blake, but I missed it.”

“Missed what?”

“That washing machine carton. She already had a washing machine. Looked brand-new. It’s in the kitchen, under the counter.”

“So? It must have come right out of that carton. Whenever it was installed.”

Reacher shook his head. “No. Two days ago that carton was new and sealed up. Now it’s been opened.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. Same carton, exact same place. But it was sealed up then and it’s open now.”

Blake stepped toward the carton. Took a pen from his pocket and used the plastic barrel to raise the flap. Stared down at what he saw.

“This carton was here already?”

Reacher nodded. “Sealed up.”

“Like it had been shipped?”

“Yes.”

“OK,” Blake said. “Now we know how he transports the paint. He delivers it ahead of time in washing machine cartons.”

YOU SIT THERE cold and sweating for an hour and at the end of it you know for certain you forgot to reseal the carton. You didn’t do it, and you didn’t make her do it. That’s a fact now, and it can’t be denied, and it needs dealing with.

Because resealing the cartons guaranteed a certain amount of delay. You know how investigators work. A just delivered appliance carton in the garage or the basement was going to attract no interest at all. It was going to be way down on the list of priorities. It would be just another part of the normal household clutter they see everywhere. Practically invisible. You’re smart. You know how these people work. Your best guess was the primary investigators would never open it at all. That was your prediction, and you were proved absolutely right three times in a row. Down in Florida, up in New Hampshire, down in California, those boxes were items on somebody’s inventory, but they hadn’t been opened. Maybe much later when the heirs came to clear out the houses they’d open them up and find all the empty cans, whereupon the shit would really hit the fan, but by then it would be way too late. A guaranteed delay, weeks or even months.

But this time, it would be different. They’d do a walk-through in the garage, and the flaps on the box would be up. Cardboard does that, especially in a damp atmosphere like they have up there. The flaps would be curling back. They’d glance in, and they wouldn’t see Styrofoam packaging and gleaming white enamel, would they?

THEY BROUGHT IN portable arc lights from the Suburban and arrayed them around the washing machine carton like it was a meteor from Mars. They stood there, bent forward from the waist like the whole thing was radioactive. They stared at it, trying to decode its secrets.

It was a normal-sized appliance carton, built out of sturdy brown cardboard folded and stapled the way appliance cartons are. The brown board was screenprinted with black ink. The manufacturer’s name dominated each of the four sides. A famous name, styled and printed like a trademark. There was the model number of the washing machine below it, and a crude picture representing the machine itself.

The sealing tape was brown, too. It had been slit along the top to allow the box to open. Inside the box was nothing at all except ten three-gallon paint cans. They were stacked in two layers of five. The lids were resting on the tops of the cans like they had been laid back into position after use. They were distorted here and there around the circumference where an implement had been used to lever them off. The rims of the cans each had a neat tongue-shaped run of dried color where the paint had been poured out.

The cans themselves were plain metal cylinders. No manufacturer’s name. No trademark. No boasts about quality or durability or coverage. Just a small printed label stenciled with a long number and the small words Camo/Green .

“These normal?” Blake asked.

Reacher nodded. “Standard-issue field supply.”

“Who uses them?”

“Any unit with vehicles. They carry them around for small repairs and touch-ups. Vehicle workshops would use bigger drums and spray guns.”

“So they’re not rare?”

Reacher shook his head. “The exact opposite of rare.”

There was silence in the garage.

“OK, take them out,” Blake said.

A crime scene technician wearing latex gloves leaned over and lifted the cans out of the carton, one by one. He lined them up on Alison Lamarr’s workbench. Then he folded the flaps of the carton back. Angled a lamp to throw light inside. The bottom of the box had five circular imprints pressed deep into the cardboard.

“The cans were full when they went in there,” the tech said.

Blake stepped back, out of the pool of blazing light, into the shadow. He turned his back on the box and stared at the wall.

“So how did it get here?” he asked.

Reacher shrugged. “Like you said, it was delivered, ahead of time.”

“Not by the guy.”

“No. He wouldn’t come twice.”

“So by who?”

“By a shipping company. The guy sent it on ahead. FedEx or UPS or somebody.”

“But appliances get delivered by the store where you buy them. On a local truck.”

“Not this one,” Reacher said. “This didn’t come from any appliance store.”

Blake sighed, like the world had gone mad. Then he turned back and stepped into the light again. Stared at the box. Walked all around it. One side showed damage. There was a shape, roughly square, where the surface of the cardboard had been torn away. The layer underneath showed through, raw and exposed. The angle of the arc lights emphasized its corrugated structure.

“Shipping label,” Blake said.

“Maybe one of those little plastic envelopes,” Reacher said. “You know, ‘Documents enclosed.’ ”

“So where is it? Who tore it off? Not the shipping company. They don’t tear them off.”

“The guy tore it off,” Reacher said. “Afterward. So we can’t trace it back.”

He paused. He’d said we . Not you. So we can’t trace it back . Not so you can’t trace it back . Blake noticed it too, and glanced up.

“But how can the delivery happen?” he asked. “In the first place? Say you’re Alison Lamarr, just sitting there at home, and UPS or FedEx or somebody shows up with a washing machine you never ordered? You wouldn’t accept the delivery, right?”

“Maybe it came when she was out,” Reacher said. “Maybe when she was up at the hospital with her dad. Maybe the driver just wheeled it into the garage and left it.”

“Wouldn’t he need a signature?”

Reacher shrugged again. “I don’t know. I’ve never had a washing machine delivered. I guess sometimes they don’t need a signature. The guy who sent it probably specified no signature required.”

“But she’d have seen it right there, next time she went in the garage. Soon as she stashed her car, when she got back.”

Reacher nodded. “Yes, she must have. It’s big enough.”

“So what then?”

"She calls UPS or FedEx or whoever. Maybe she tore off the envelope herself. Carried it into the house, to the phone, to give them the details.”

“Why didn’t she unpack it?”